FuturAS: Future Generation Automation Systems

Automation systems are a central and crucial component in most industrial systems today. While the development of automation systems has been very successful in recent decades, in a constant effort to improve productivity, optimize operations and enable more and flexible production, anticipation of the so-called "fourth industrial revolution", or "industry 4.0", requires a new level of automation. Central to the concept of "industry 4.0" is connection, connection and digitization. These concepts give the industry an opportunity to radically change how it responds to future needs. Advances in “industry 4.0” will be realized with the help of a smartly connected ecosystem consisting of the “Internet of Things” (IoT), collaborative robots and digitized manufacturing. New technologies in progress, such as cloud services and 5G and IoT, play a key role in the digitalisation process for modern industry. The FuturAS (Future generation Automation Systems) project has the vision to participate in the design of the automation systems of the future, by integrating new technology and enabling new smarter functions, which together have the potential for more efficient solutions compared to today's systems.

This mobility project will examine how to combine advanced academic research with industrially relevant problems and methods to provide improved and cost-effective solutions that are directly applicable in industry.

The main goals for FuturAS are:

1. to contribute with research on and development of the future generation automation system in collaboration with one of the world's leading companies in automation, ie. ABB
2. to gain an understanding of prioritizing related challenges from an industrial perspective so that the research conducted is not only scientifically excellent but also industrially relevant
3. to create a bridge between academia and the automation industry, with the vision to create the basis for future training and research of automation engineers.